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ICE Begins Crackdown On DREAMers

As state after state lodges various complaints to block President Trump’s immigration executive order, it appears he is following through on campaign promises in other ways.

What seems to be the first detention of a so-called DREAMer, a 23-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant has been arrested in Seattle by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

President Trump has promised to crackdown on the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, most of whom come from Mexico and other Latin American countries. While Trump campaigned on a promise to roll back Obama’s executive actions on immigration, since assuming office he has kept his public comments on DACA vague.

But now, as Reuters reports, U.S. authorities have arrested an immigrant from Mexico who was brought to the United States illegally as a child and later given a work permit during the Obama administration in what could be the first detention of its kind under President Trump.

Daniel Ramirez Medina, a 23-year-old with no criminal record, was taken into custody last week at his father’s home in Seattle by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The officers arrived at the home to arrest the man’s father, though court documents did not make clear the reason the father was taken into custody.

Ramirez, now in custody in Tacoma, Washington, was granted temporary permission to live and work legally in the United States under a program called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, established in 2012 by Democratic President Obama, according to a court filing.

The program protects from deportation 750,000 people who were brought to the United States illegally as children, sometimes called the “dreamers,” and gives them the temporary right to work legally in the United States.

Ramirez filed a challenge to his detention in Seattle federal court on Monday, arguing that the government violated his constitutional rights because he had work authorization under the DACA program.

ICE agents took Ramirez to a processing center in Seattle and he again disclosed his DACA work permit, the lawsuit stated.

“It doesn’t matter, because you weren’t born in this country,” one of the agents said, according to the lawsuit.

Ramirez was fingerprinted, booked and taken to a detention center in Tacoma where he was still in custody on Tuesday, Rosenbaum said.

A move against DACA recipients like Ramirez would represent a significant broadening of immigration enforcement under Trump.